Churches Helping Churches

Mars Hill Church in Seattle sent three pastors last week to the CHC Haitian pastors’ conference: Justin Holcomb and Mike Wilkerson each taught at various sessions, and Jamie Munson came and observed the week, writing and twittering the whole time. Below is Pastor Jamie’s interview of Pastor Mike on the week. Be sure to check out Pastor Jamie’s posts on the Mars Hill blog and photos.

Haiti Pastors Conference from Mars Hill Church on Vimeo.

Stay tuned for much more videos, photos, and posts on the conference, which wrapped up on Friday in Port-au-Prince. And in the meantime, if you live in Chicagoland, head over to our CHC Benefit Concert, hosted by Harvest Bible Chapel, this Sunday.

What: Join our partners Harvest Bible Chapel for a benefit concert for Churches Helping Churches as we provide support and relief to the churches and communities of Haiti following the devastating earthquake this year.

When: Sunday, June 6 at 6 pm.

Who: This outdoor concert will feature:

• Lindsay McCaul,
• Josh Caterer and Friends,
• Rainbow Rhythms featuring Tara Stutes and Landon MacDonald,
• J Griff,
• Milano, and
• DJ Seaquest

Where: Fred P. Hall Amphitheater

262 E Palatine Road
Palatine, Illinois 60067

In case of rain, the concert will be held at Cornerstone Cafe at Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows.

How: Admission to the concert is technically free, but, since this is a benefit concert and all, we’d ask that you please donate to our mission in Haiti. You can also spend your money on refreshments and Churches Helping Churches t-shirts that will be available for sale at the concert.

Why: Why not?

Jacques Louis sits in an orange chair in a cluttered room, his head against the wall and feet extended, as he checks off a list in a graphing notebook. Someone comes in about every four minutes to ask him a question. The first day of the Churches Helping Churches pastors’ retreat has been a long one.

As the director of S.T.E.P., which is hosting the retreat, and as one of the few people who speak the three relevant languages here–French, Creole, English, Jacques is everybody’s go-to guy. The exhaustion would irritate most, but that’s hardly the thought that’s on his mind.

“I’m pretty relaxed,” he says. “There were lots of worries at the beginning of the day. Not everything was ready, but it all went well.”

He’s talking about the fact that the shipping container with all of CHC’s materials for the event–including the event tent, cots, and audio Bibles for attending pastors–have yet to be released. (Organizers were furiously translating a manifest of the container’s contents into French that evening.) Hence the reason Jacques is holding the list of air mattresses.

“We made do even though it’s not a paradise,” he says, as pastors stretch out on air mattresses, some inside the meeting room, some on the open-air deck a few yards away. “We just want them to sleep well so they can be well rested for tomorrow.”

About 150 pastors–of all ages and dressed nearly uniformly in slacks and a short-sleeved polo shirts–arrived this afternoon from all over the tiny Caribbean nation. The goal was 200, but the space was more limited than expected, and organizers had to turn away some who wanted to attend.

They participated in two sessions on the the purpose of the retreat and being in a time of need, then spent over an hour in group discussions led by pastors from the Haitian diaspora. Next, was dinner where they mingled while eating the rice and beans, chicken, and green beans.

“I was really encouraged to see them come from so far, from all the extremities,” says Leslie, 48, a staff member from Port-au-Prince.

Many of the pastors have come to be able to share with other pastors in their country as they all deal with the effects of the cataclysmic Jan. 12 earthquake. As the leaders in their community, many haven’t had anyone with whom to process the after affects.

At dinner, a middle-aged pastor in a corn-blue button-down shirt and patterned tie eats quietly. He has a walkman holstered on his belt. The tape, he says, is Angeline Sanon, a popular national musician.

Another young pastor wants to find someone to talk to because he’s worried about his sister, who’s been somewhat mentally unhinged since the 7.0 quake hit the impoverished capital four months ago. It’s affecting him a lot, he says, but that was already evident. He’s eventually brought to Jacques to see what, if anything, can be done.

A pastor named Rhony talks about his love of sports (volleyball and “Seattle’s basketball team, the Supersonics!”–yes, news travels slowly here).

Then he stops. “This means a lot to us that you all [from the states] are here,” he says. “There’s all this baggage,” he says, motioning to his head. “After the quake, everybody was coming to us with their problems, saying ‘Pastor, pastor,’ and we didn’t have anyone to go to ourselves.”

Later that night, the dozen American pastors and clinical psychologists who are teaching and leading this week get together to debrief. Pastor Robert is encouraged by the pastors’ participation, that they were open to raising their hands and expressing their fears during the talks this afternoon. Pastor Mike is (pleasantly) surprised by certain small group leaders who, he says, really got the vision for the purpose of the groups. Overall, they get the sense that the Haitian pastors are appreciative of the support and comradeship the conference is providing, and that it’s unifying pastors from across the country and within specific regions.

“This brings a lot of denominations together,” says Pastor Sam, a Haitian from Fort Lauderdale. “This is a great week, and I will hope [the pastors] will spread the word. They’ll go home and talk to others who didn’t have anywhere to go. I think this is a really good accomplishment.”

As the meeting wraps up, CHC Director Thomas Kim walks over to Jacques and puts a hand on the tall Haitian’s shoulder. “Jacques, thank you so much for all you did today getting everything done,” he says.

Jacques’ eyes pop, “But it wasn’t me who did anything, it was God!”

For those of you keeping the Haitian pastors and Churches Helping Churches crew in your prayers, here is their schedule for this week.

To keep up with the latest updates and pictures from the trip, please subscribe via RSS or join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you to all of you who’ve supported Churches Helping Churches financially or with prayer. We believe Jesus will use these Haitian pastors to reach a country in need.

In three days, Haitian pastors will arrive in Port-au-Prince for the Churches Helping Pastors retreat. Here’s what we need prayer for:

• That the shipping container will make it off the boat and clear customs in time for Monday.
• That political unrest and protests would not deter pastors from traveling to Port-au-Prince for the retreat.
• For the hearts of the pastors who will attend and those who will be ministering to them.

On Friday of last week, we hit a major milestone in our preparation for this conference: We shipped off a 40-foot container out of Miami.

But now we’ve got problems again: They’re not letting the container off the boat in Port-au-Prince so it can be processed through customs. Originally, we were expecting to have the container clear customs on Monday next week, the day our retreat starts.

The materials inside that container are critical for the conference. Here’s what’s inside:

• Proclaimers: In a place where 1 out of every 2 people is illiterate, this is how you get the Word of God to them: solar-powered audio Bibles.  Faith Comes by Hearing, the manufacturer of these products, is giving one to each attendee of this conference.
• Haitian trauma books: David C. Cook has a 500-page counseling trauma kit.  It was adapted to Haiti and translated into Creole.  The first versions came off the press on Wednesday and were dropped shipped to Miami in time to ship for the container closing on Thursday.  This is a phenomenal resource: Scripture-saturated, group discussion oriented, and knowledgeable.  CHC is helping pay for the translation of these materials.  Each pastor at the conference will receive one.
• Tent: 5,000-square foot event tent and 250 cots: This will serve as one big bedroom where all the pastors will sleep.
• Mosquito repellent: Malaria, typhoid fever, and dengue fever. Need we say more?

A special thanks to Boca Raton Community Church.  All of this inventory was held there while we made shipping arrangements.  They used their staff and small groups to load the container before sending it off.  We could not have done this without you, thanks.

Any amount of time this container is delayed directly affects the conference. Please pray this process is resolved quickly and the retreat can go on uninhibited.

“I also want you to hear that, what’s anticipated is not that we’re sending people with American strategies of counseling, but people who are practicing gospeling people here, taking a timeless and transcultural gospel to Haiti, and equipping men to be able to gospel to people that God’s going to give them as they rebuild the churches of Haiti.”

Pastor Bill Clem
Mars Hill Ballard Campus Pastor

In one week, 200 Haitian pastors will come to Port-au-Prince from all regions of this tiny Caribbean nation for a week of healing. At this event, they will receive counseling and be ministered to as they personally recover from the trauma of the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Below is a partial list of the pastors who will be attending next week. Leave your prayers for them and the others at the bottom of this page. These prayers will be compiled into a small booklets that will be handed out to each pastor at the retreat so they can see all that has been prayed for them.

Please keep these pastors on your hearts during this intense time. Pray that they will be renewed and equipped, so that they can, in turn, go out and minister to the Haitians in each of their churches and communities as the country rebuilds.

“The biggest blessing which our country needs it is that of a spiritual awakening of the church of Jesus Christ, and it will have to begin with the leaders. … Needed are new leaders for a new church, a new church for a new society, a new society for a new Haiti.“

From a letter we received about our pastors’ retreat from a Haitian minister who lives in Canada. Emphases, ours.

Dear colleague in the LORD!

Thank you for this interesting invitation to participate in the May conference in Haiti. I find that it is a very good initiative…

I came back from Haiti last Tuesday exhausted, but happy to have served the Lord in this physically devastated, emotionally traumatized country … despite the big number of evangelicals, and of overcrowded churches. The biggest blessing which our country needs it is that of a spiritual awakening of the church of Jesus Christ, and it will have to begin with the leaders.

Post traumatic disturbances of our Haitian brothers and sisters are very real. I saw them myself, having made [sic] the terrible experience of earthquake in Port-au-Prince on January 12th. Training will be very much useful, but it will also be necessary to consider the counseling for the pastors themselves, because they are traumatized shepherds called to serve traumatized people. …

I give you the assurance of my prayers for the ministry which you are going to do for the glory of our common Lord and Savior. I shall ask that God provokes the necessary workers, and uses the team which will leave as good comforters and counselors.

I hope that this conference will be only the first stage of a plan of action which will touch as much soul as mind of the leaders and of their flock. Needed are new leaders for a new church, a new church for a new society, a new society for a new Haiti.

Brotherhood greetings in Jesus Christ,

F.N.
Ottawa, Canada

We just wanted to share a brief encouragement.

After recent communications about our work with Haitian pastors, we saw an uptick in donations. Three groups made substantial donations over the past week, 4 months after the earthquake. These donations are not knee-jerk reactions to the news. These are groups that really believe in what we’re doing. We especially wanted to share that as preparations for Churches Helping Pastors accelerate.  It’s been hard work and long hours to pull this off, but knowing the Kingdom team is behind us means so much!